A couple of days back, Brian dropped by bearing gifts from the Coast (Aaron and Paul): a whole bunch of useful stuff in the Army Men line that near on rounds off my armies. Many thanks, guys!

Newly arrived Army Men, vehicles and guns courtesy Paul Foster
and his friend Aaron Tebbutt (?). The teddybear? Well, I had to
use the spare room as temporary accommodation whilst I had the
wargames table up in the back room...

First of all: several more Army Men guys to add to the fun. There's a few officer type figures in there that will help fill gaps in command, and the odd 'sailor' figure to add to my Naval Field Artillery battery. There's one or two prone LMG men that may be re-issued with anti-tank rifles. I have rules for ATRs so I might as well have some ATR men! Do you know, in all the hundreds of Army Men guys I already have, only two others were prone figures, and they really had to remain as LMG men...

There's a few fixer-uppers here - wheel shortages mainly - but that's fine. Fixer-uppering is no problem (when I find those wooden wheels that I know are kicking around somewhere!). I'm just glad to have these two 3-gun light-field batteries! I did toy with making them anti-tank guns - and will probably allow them some anti-tank capability at that - but they look too much like field artillery to have them any other way.

The two Centurion Tanks were a whisker different in size, and a tad larger than the two I bought around Christmas time. There's so little difference I decided to put them in a single Squadron, with the smallest two being Mark Is (a Mk I what, I'm not sure!), the middle one a Mk II, and the largest a Mk III. With my One Brain Cell rule set, the Mk Is will count as having Medium armour protection and armed with a Medium anti-tank gun; the Mk II Heavy armour with a Medium gun, and the Mk III, Heavy armour/ Heavy gun.

A comparison with the size of the PzIV(G)s I bought on the coast about 18 months back shows that the biggest of the Centurions is roughly of a size similar. The PzIVs, I count as carrying Heavy armour and a Heavy gun.

Meanwhile, the flat bed trucks will probably receive cardboard and paper tilts, but the one with what looks like a steel superstructure on the tray will likely become an HQ vehicle of some sort. Altogether a very pleasant surprise.

Meanwhile, on an entirely different topic, Karen and I visited a 2nd hand bookshop whilst waiting for some WORD and EXCEL software to be downloaded onto my machine. And look what I found!

This makes a pretty large sized paper model - completed, it's over 45cm long - of a late 16th Century English Galleon in full sail.

A sample double-page spread...

What the finished model should look like, broad reaching on the larboard (port) tack. It could be crewed with 15mm metals or 20mm plastics if you want ship to ship action... I still have Brian's two merchant vessels to complete and paint up. In my view this would make a fine addition.

Finally, something from 'Papermau' paper models: an armoured car. The Imperial Army of Raesharn will receive two or three of these...

Thanks for the advice. I did consider the gun shield route, and on your recommendation will have another think. I'm now thinking that they might not 'go' so well with my cardboard guns at that, so the AT gun notion is starting to look good. The centurions are the soft plastic 'Army Men' type vehicles, but they aren't too bad at all. are they?

I've just dug up my own army men to shoot those nerf darts at them. Quite the fun, in fact I might be looking for more (cheap) ones in the future. The best would be the rip-offs of Airfix 1/32 figures, of which I have a bunch and they are bulky and very nice.The paper models look promising.

The future of the galleon is unclear. I have asked a friend if he would be interested in having it (in acknowledgement of the vast amounts of stuff he's sent my way). As it was going very cheaply at the bookshop ($4) it was too hard just to leave it there!

On the matter of the Louis XIV blog, I guess I just didn't look at the side panels closely enough, just what was presented. Fine site all the same - and as I am in the process of building an Imperialist WSS army - of considerable interest to me.

It looks as if you have the beginnings of a sizeable and balanced force of men and equipment ... and the new artillery does look more than suitable for use as anti-tank guns which - by the growing size of your armoured force - you are going to need!

I love the galleon, and even though I would not have had a use for it, I would have bought it if I had seen it.

Sounds like a good day. Lets hope there are going to be plenty more like it!

It's an ill wind... When I got my new machine, I simply forgot to update my word and spreadsheet software (both of which I use a fairish bit for my war games stuff). Fortunate, that turned out to be, though it meant a delay in getting certain tasks done, such as this and my next posting.